The existing braking warnings on the road today cannot deliver efficient warning at night, when a driver cannot assess the distance between their car and the braking car in front, and the driver cannot distinguish between a routine braking action and a sudden, total stop in the darkness (this applies, of course, also to daytime, poor visibility weather conditions.)
There are many known prior art braking devices which try to solve this problem, but approach the problem only partially. The known devices rely on mechanical deceleration detectors (i.e. inertia) that may provide brake light intensity change. All of these known devices try to aid a tailing driver in recognizing the braking rate of the vehicle in front: For example, Wuhsch (U.S. Pat. No. 2,474,610), Hendrickson (U.S. Pat. No. 3,576,528) and Jacobs (U.S. Pat. No. 3,748,643) show an automobile braking systems which change the brake light color--red, amber and green. Chen (U.S. Pat. No. 5,059,947) varies the intensity of the brake light depending on the speed of the vehicle. Salsman (U.S. Pat. No. 5,089,805) shows mechanical deceleration inertia switches which sequentially activate rows of lights depending on the rate of deceleration. Eckstein (U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,526) shows a braking system having accelerator pedal with a switch for activating the brake lights. Collins (U.S. Pat. No. 2,156,751) shows an automobile braking system having a brake pedal inertia switch for sounding a horn depending on the rate of depression of the brake pedal. None of the known braking systems provides both an audio and visual warning system to warn trailing vehicles in any weather condition and daytime or night time.
Recently, the Federal Government has required the addition of high, rear deck mounted brake lights to motor vehicles to improve safety by providing additional warning to trailing vehicles about the deceleration or braking of a motor vehicle to prevent or reduce the number of rear end collisions. This is an indication of how important additional warning devices are needed in the automobile industry.